I stared out the window of the airship, resting my forearms on the handrail and taking in the scenery as we made our way to Beacon once again. I was also thinking about how much our lives had changed three months ago. The morning after we arrived on Remnant, Azura was shocked to realize that none of it was a dream, and didn't take it too well. She eventually returned to her normal, immature self, but I could still tell she was distraught over it.
After we woke up, Ozpin told us that he managed to get us an apartment in Vale. We taught ourselves how to fight, and that was something that was harder than we thought. We had to create our own fighting styles, and since every huntsman and huntress' style was so unique it took longer for us to create one that we could use. Eventually, I managed to create my own fighting style which could be used both aggressively and defensively. I taught Azura how to use it as well for whenever she used her weapon, now named Aeterna Flamma, in its sword form.
Summer also told me everything she knew. She had visions of three gems, and manage to retrieve two but was killed shortly after retrieving the third . Her killer wanted the third gem she retrieved, which meant that someone wanted them as well, which made this mission important. I would soon start having visions of the gems and where they are located, which would happen randomly and could be a few weeks or months apart. This meant that as soon as I had a vision of a gem, I needed to locate it, retrieve it and get out of there before the people who wanted the gems could get to me. I didn't expect my future team to come with me, so I left them out of the plans to get the gems.
"So whatcha doin'?" I turned my head to the left to see Azura walking up next to me. She was wearing a light blue long sleeve shirt, ocean green cargo pants and brown combat boots. She was also wearing a brown belt across her waist, with Aeterna Flamma sheathed on her left and a small pouch on her right, and her quiver containing red dust-tipped arrows on her back. It was her "signature outfit".
As for me, I was wearing a black and red flannel shirt with a dark grey hood and drawstrings, a dark grey shirt underneath, dark blue jeans, grey shoes, a brown belt around my waist and a small, black, single strap backpack on my back. My flannel was unbuttoned all the way down, with my sleeves rolled up to my elbows. On my belt was a couple of pouches, with the largest on the back and the smallest on the left side. Also on the left side of my belt was a sheathed combat knife, which resembled a Kabar. Clipped on the right side was Janus, in a position close enough for me to grab it incase of an emergency.
"Just enjoying the view." I replied, gesturing to the window. We passing over vale on our way to Beacon, and we got an amazing view of the city in the process.
"Better than Berlin?" She asked with a smirk on her face. She already knew what my answer would be but she just wanted to tease me about it.
I was born in Germany, more specifically, Ramstein Air Base. My dad was in the US Air Force and stationed in Germany at the end of the Cold War. That was where he met my Mom, and a few years later they had me and my sister, Marigold. Shortly after after having us, he was transferred back to the US. About a year later, when I was six years old, I met Azura. I visited Berlin with my Mom a few years after my Dad died, and I thought it was amazing. I loved the city, and I wanted to visit it again. I never did get to visit it again, but I would never forget it. I was so excited to go back there that I learned how to speak German, and I spoke it really good.
"It's almost as nice as Berlin." I replied, looking back out the window. I watched as each building, every street passed below us. It did remind me a lot of Berlin, and living here for three months made me miss it so much.
"I can't believe my baby sister is going to Beacon with me!" Me and Azura turned our heads to that voice, and saw a blonde haired girl squeezing the life out of who I presumed to be her younger sister. Her sister had red-black hair and a red cloak on. She looked a couple of years younger than the blonde, and did not look like she was enjoying having the life squeezed out of her.
"Anyways," Azura said, "What do you think it'll be like at Beacon?"
"I think it's gonna be fun," I replied, "We're gonna meet new people, make new friends, all the good stuff about school."
"Are you sure we're gonna make friends?" That question caught me off guard, and I didn't understand what she meant by that.
"What do you mean?"
"What if we don't make any friends? I don't want you to be my only friend like back home." Azura didn't have any friends when I met her. I was her only friend. She was really sad about me graduating high school, and she wanted to go to the same community college I was going to so she would have someone to be with.
"Just stick with me," I told her, "You know I make friends easily, so just follow me and we'll make some friends."
"...nefarious criminal Roman Torchwick, who continues to evade authorities," Our attention was drawn to the newscast about some criminal named Torchwick, "If you have any information on his whereabouts, please contact the Vale Police Department. Back to you, Lisa." The newscast changed to a woman and photo of Faunus demonstrators.
"Thank you, Cyril," The news anchor, Lisa, said, "In other news, this Saturday's Faunus Civil Rights protest turned dark when members of the White Fang disrupted the ceremony. The once peaceful organization has now disrupted-"
The newsfeed then cut out and a hologram of a blonde woman appeared. I instantly recognized the woman as Glynda Goodwitch, a professor at Beacon.
"Hello, and welcome to Beacon. My name is Glynda Goodwitch. You are among a privileged few who have received the honor of being selected to attend this prestigious academy. Our world is experiencing an incredible time of peace, and as future Huntsmen and Huntresses, it is your duty to uphold it. You have demonstrated the courage needed for such a task, and now it is our turn to provide you with the knowledge and the training to protect our world."
As soon as the hologram of Goodwitch disappeared people began to look at Vale down below. We had been over it for some time, but now people were looking at the city with awe. It seemed, to me at least, that many of them hadn't been to Vale and grew up outside the Kingdoms.
You ready for Beacon Ash? Summer had been quiet most of the ride to Beacon, until now.
Of course. Anything I should know before going in? I Replied.
No, nothing important. Well, not yet at least.
I was snapped out of my mental conversation by a tall, blonde haired boy running to the back of the airship, holding his hand to his mouth. He ran over to the nearest trash bin and started vomiting into it.
"The view isn't for everyone, I guess." I said jokingly, getting a small laugh out of Azura. The airship then prepared to dock, and everyone on the airship began to move to the nearby airlock. We began to follow.
As we walked to the airlock, the vomiting blonde ran past us, again holding his hand to his mouth. The airlock then opened, and he ran out quickly and began vomiting, again, into the nearest trash bin. I stopped, thinking about whether or not I should make sure he was ok. Then I made up my mind.
"Hey Azura, it's time to make some new friends." I said, walking towards the vomiting blonde. He was still emptying the contents of his stomach when we got to him. "Hey man, you alright?"
"Yeah I'm fine, I've just got motion sickness." He said, turning around to look at us. He was taller than me by a couple of inches, had blue eyes, pale skin and a black hoodie. "Well, I'm Jaune, Jaune Arc."
"Ash Krieger." I said, holding out my hand. Jaune looked at his hand before shaking mine, probably to make sure there was no vomit on it. After the handshake I gestured to Azura. "And this is my best friend, Azura Hood"
"Hi!" She said, giving a short wave to Jaune.
"Hey there!" He said, waving back and smiling.
"We should probably get off the ship before they leave with us still on." I said, gesturing to the outside.
We then walked out of the airlock and towards the school. It felt good being back here, even though we weren't here that long before. The campus was filled with students, new and returning. Somewhere amongst the new students would be our future teammates, our future friends.
"So, where are you guys from?" Jaune asked. Me and Azura had discussed what we would say if this ever came up so we wouldn't be taken off guard.
"We're from a small village called Lowe," I said, "But we've lived here since we were twelve. Lowe was overrun by the Grimm one day and we were separated from our parents. We never saw them again."
"Damn, I'm sorry," Jaune said, "Is that why both of you want to become-"
*KABOOM!*
"WHAT THE HELL!?"
All three of us jumped back, surprised by the sudden explosion. I looked ahead of us and saw the girl with the red cloak from the airship, and another girl covered in soot. This girl did not look too happy about what happened.
"Unbelievable!"The girl said, raising her voice at the red girl while patting the soot off of her body, "This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about!"
"I'm really, really sorry!" The red-cloaked girl said, apologetic and embarrassed.
"Should we, you know, do something?" Azura said, unsure of what to do. Jaune looked the same way. I didn't know what to do either. I was about to respond when a girl with black hair and a black bow walked up to the two girls.
"Doesn't look like we need to." I said, crossing my arms. The girl in white at first seemed too happy about whatever the black-haired girl was saying, but then seemed to be upset about something, grabbed what looked like a vial of red dust and stormed off. The girl in red then reached her hand out and said something, but I couldn't make out what she said, and just as she did so the girl with the black bow began walking away, apparently without saying anything as the red girl fell to her knees and laid down on the ground.
"Well, it look's like we need to." Jaune said, walking up to the girl. Me and Azura followed him to the Red girl. He then stopped next to her and held out his hand as she looked at him. "Hey, I'm Jaune."
"Ruby," The young girl said, taking Jaune's hand and standing up, "Aren't you the guy that threw up on the ship?"
"Yup! The one and only vomit boy!" I said, walking up right next to Jaune and patting him on the back. "He has motion sickness, so I can't blame him for vomiting all over the airship."
"Motion sickness, huh?" Ruby asked.
"Yeah..."Jaune said, looking down at his shoes embarrassed.
As they continued their conversation, something about the young red girl caught my attention. Her outfit, a black tunic with a red cloak, seemed very familiar. It looked like Summer's outfit, with only minor differences like the color of the cloak. Then I noticed her eyes.
Silver...
"I'm Azura Hood!" Azura's voice snapped me out of my thoughts, and then she pointed her finger at me. "And this is Ash Krieger!"
"Ruby Rose."
Holy shit...
Was she somehow related to summer? She had to be. Not only did she dress like her but she had the same last name and the same exact eyes! They were just like Summer's.
They were just like mine...
"You have silver eyes too?" Ruby asked me, looking at my eyes.
"Yeah," I replied, "They're just like my mom's eyes."
"Really?" She asked, "I have my mom's eyes too!"
It was pretty safe to say that Ruby was Summer's daughter. I would just have to ask Summer if this was true. She never told me she had any kids, or if she ever married. Maybe she just wanted me to concentrate on my mission? Or maybe she didn't remember ever having kids. Or maybe she didn't want me to know at all. But if she didn't want me to know then why didn't she stop me from talking to Ruby? Sure, there wasn't much she could do, but she could have told me not to talk to her. That was the only thing she could do, as far as I knew. She had to know what I was thinking right now, but she wasn't saying anything. So right now, it was just me, Azura, and our new friends.
"All I'm saying is that motion sickness is a much more common problem than people let on!" Jaune told us, getting us to understand his motion sickness.
"Look, I'm sorry. Vomit Boy was the first thing that came to mind." Ruby told him.
"It was also the first thing that came to my mind." Azura said.
"Vomiting blonde was the first thing I thought of."
"Oh yeah? What if I called you Crater Face, Blitzkrieg and Goldfish?" He retorted with a look of annoyance on his face.
"That explosion was an accident!" Ruby defended.
"He called you Goldfish." I said to Azura, giggling. She shoved her elbow into my rib.
"Well, the name's Jaune Arc. Short, sweet and rolls off the tongue. The ladies love it!"
"Do they?" Ruby asked skeptically.
"They will! Well, I-I hope they will. My mom always says that..." He trailed off before letting out a defeated sigh. "Never mind."
Ruby, Azura and I all giggled at Jaune's awkwardness for a second, before an awkward silence fell upon us. The Ruby reached for something on her back.
"So... I got this." She said, unfolding a massive scythe and stabbing it into the ground.
"Is that a scythe!?" Jaune asked, struck with awe by the weapon.
"It is also a customizable, high impact sniper rifle!" Ruby replied, hoisting the giant weapon into her hands.
"A-wha...?" Jaune said, confused. Then Ruby cocked it while smiling.
"It's also a gun."
"That's cool!"
"Cool? That's friggin' awesome!" Azura exclaimed, staring at the weapon with amazement.
And I was just sitting there, jealous of the young girl's weapon, which was four times better than mine.
"So, what've you got?" Ruby asked us. Me and Azura both motioned to Jaune to present his weapon first. We were both interested to see what he had, and I was ready this time to see my weapon be outclassed by everyone else's. He grabbed his sword and pulled it out of it's sheath.
"I got this sword!"
Ruby looked at it, interested in the blonde's longsword. Jaune then smirked and grasped his sheath.
"Yeah, and I got a shield, too!" He said, expanding the sheath into a heater shield with two crescent arcs on it.
"So, what do they do?" Ruby asked, touching the shield with curiosity. When she did, the shield sprung shut, to Jaune's surprise. He fumbled with his shield, trying to catch it and get ahold of his weapon, and stepped back to try and catch it. He finally caught it and looked at us, collapsing his shield back into its sheath form and putting it on his belt.
"Well, the shield gets smaller, so when I get tired of carrying it I could just, you know, put it away..." He said, trailing off.
"But wouldn't it weigh the same?" Ruby asked.
"Yeah, you're right." Jaune said, dejectedly and looking down at the ground.
"So what do you two have?" Ruby asked us. Before I could even move my hand to grab Janus, Azura took Aeterna out of it's sheath.
"Mine's a sword that turns into a bow!" She said, shifting the weapon into its bow form. Ruby stared at it in awe, then looked at me.
"And yours?" The young weapons geek asked me. I then grabbed Janus off my belt.
"I've got this." I said, activating the white-bladed weapon.
"Oh my God that is so cool!" Ruby exclaimed, staring at Janus. "How did you get that to work!?"
"That would take a long time to explain, but it's powered by a dust crystal." I couldn't really tell them that it was powered by a gem that teleported me and Azura here, because not only would they not believe me, our secret could get people killed. Well, according to Ozpin, at least. So I just lied to them, that was really the only thing I could do.
"I wanna know so bad! I'm kind of a dork when it comes to weapons. I even went overboard when designing Crescent Rose." Ruby said, holding up her weapon.
"Wait, you MADE that?" Jaune asked.
"Of course!" Ruby replied, "All students at Signal forge their own weapons! Didn't you make yours?"
"Well, it's a hand-me-down. My great-great- grandfather used it during the war." Jaune said very depressed. Probably because he thought his weapon wasn't as cool as ours.
"Sounds more like a family heirloom to me!" Ruby told him, "Well, I like it! Not many people have an appreciation for the classics these days."
"Yeah, the classics..."
"So, why did you guys help me out back there?" Ruby asked.
"Why not?" Jaune replied, "My mom always says, 'strangers are just friends you haven't met yet'."
"Hey, where are we going?" Ruby asked.
"I don't know, I was following you."Jaune replied. They then turned to me and Azura.
"Hey, we just got here too!" Azura said defensively.
"Maybe there's a directory?" I suggested.
"Maybe a food court? Some kind of recognizable landmark?"
We eventually figured out where to go after a few minutes of looking around and asking people. We headed to the school's amphitheater, which wasn't too far from where we were before. I actually remember passing this building three months ago when me and Azura were leaving Beacon. The four of us entered the amphitheater together to find a large crowd of people, most likely the incoming first year students, waiting inside. There was a lot of people there, probably around a hundred. There wasn't as much people as I thought there would be. That may have been because being a Huntsman or a Huntress was one of the most dangerous jobs on Remnant, and not a lot of people wanted to, or could, fight the Grimm with a high chance of dying. Everyone was talking to each other, playing games on their scrolls, looking around for some of their friends.
"Ruby, over here!" We heard a voice call from in front of us. The voice came from a blonde haired girl, the same one from the airship, who was waving to Ruby. "I saved you a spot!"
"Hey, you guys should come meet my sister!" Ruby said to us as she grabbed Jaune by the wrist and starting walking away with him. "Come on!"
"Whoa!"
Me and Azura followed Ruby, who was dragging Jaune with her, to her sister. It was when we finally got to the blonde I got a good look at her. She was about Azura's height, had long, messy blonde hair with a small cowlick at the top, a pale complexion and lilac eyes. She also had a big pair of-
"Guys, this is my sister, Yang. Yang, these are my new friends, Ash, Azura and Jaune." Ruby introduced.
"Aw, my baby sister made friends!" Yang said happily.
"Only after you ditched me and I exploded." Ruby said angrily.
"Yikes! You had a meltdown already?"
"No, I literally exploded a hole in front of the school! And there was some fire, and I think some ice...?"
Yang then leaned in, smiling broadly at Ruby.
"Are you being sarcastic?" Yang asked her younger sister.
"I wish! I tripped over some crabby girl's luggage, and then she yelled at me, and then I sneezed, and then I exploded, and then she yelled at me again, and I felt really, really bad, and I just wanted her to stop yelling at me!" None of us realized it, but said girl was standing right behind us, and heard everything.
"YOU!"
The sudden and unexpected voice of the caught not only Ruby off guard, but me as well. Ruby jumped into her sister's arms, and I jumped into Jaune's.
"GAAAH!"
"OH GOD! IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN!"
"You were lucky you weren't blown off the side of the cliff!" The girl scolded Ruby harshly. A sudden look of realization came to Yang's face.
"Oh my God, you really exploded." Yang said to her sister. As she said this I realized that I was in Jaune's arms, so I stepped back onto the ground and looked at the angry girl.
"Look, it was an accident, and she apolo-"
"Shut up! This doesn't concern you!" The angry girl cut me off, and then shoved a pamphlet into Ruby's face
"The Schnee Dust Company is not responsible for any injuries or damages sustained while operating a Schnee Dust Company product. Although not mandatory, the Schnee Family highly encourages customers to read and familiarize themselves with this easy to follow guide to Dust applications and practices in the field."
"Heilige scheiße..." I muttered to myself.
"You really wanna start making things up to me?"
"Absolutely?"
"Read this and don't ever speak to me again."
"Don't you think that's a little harsh?" Azura asked, to which the angry girl turned to her.
"Don't you think you should be minding your own business?"
"Look, it sounds like you guys got off on the wrong foot. Why don't you start over and try to be friends?" Yang suggested.
"Yeah! Great idea sis!" Ruby then held out her hand to the girl. "Hello Weiss! I'm Ruby! Wanna hang out? We can go shopping for school supplies!"
So this angry girl's name was Weiss, that was good to know. Weiss then acted enthusiastically about Ruby's offer.
"Yeah! And we can paint our nails and try on clothes and talk about cute boys, like tall, blond and scraggly right here!"
"Wow, really!?"
"NO."
Suddenly we heard the sound of someone tapping a microphone, and we looked up to the stage to see Ozpin standing on the stage. Glynda Goodwitch was standing beside him. Ozpin adjusted his glasses and began to speak to everyone.
"I'll... keep this brief. You have traveled here today in search of knowledge, to hone your craft and acquire new skills, and when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. But I look amongst you, and all I see is wasted energy, in need of purpose, direction."
The students in the room began to whisper to one another about what Ozpin what Ozpin just said. Even I was surprised by his choice of words. I was expecting him to be more welcoming to the incoming students, as was everyone else. Why he chose to say what he said was beyond me, but I assumed he said this to every class. He then continued speaking.
"You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step."
He then stepped off the stage, and Glynda took to the microphone.
"You will gather in the ballroom tonight; tomorrow, your initiation begins. Be ready. You are dismissed." And with that, she walked off the stage after Ozpin.
"What the hell was that?" I asked, confused about what Ozpin just said.
"Yeah, he seemed kind of... off." Yang said.
"It was like he wasn't even there." Ruby commented.
"I'm a natural blonde, you know." Jaune said to Weiss, who just facepalmed.